CUI BONO COVID?
By Hernan Saenz Cortes Cui Bono? is one of those legal-jargon phrases that all law students (should) know. For the rest of us, it sounds like another Latin phrased that is used only by those who had a very expensive education. However, answering it can…
In East Africa, the Pandemic has Pushed Millions out of Work: Here’s what Governments Need to do
Anthony Kamande Out of the blue over Christmas, while I was visiting my home village some 200km from Nairobi, a helicopter landed. This was extraordinary: my village only got electricity in 2017 and an event like this had never happened before. (Even now, as most…
Life in Socialist Countries and the Fight against Inequality
By Max Lawson My friend Olga Ghazaryan was born in 1962 in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, a small mountainous country in the Caucasus, and that time one of the republics that made up the USSR. I have known Olga since around 2003, when we…
“AN INCREDIBLE EXPLOSION OF INEQUALITY” – with Renowned Economist, Branko Milanovic
By Elizabeth Njambi We are witnessing a COVID-19 driven explosion in inequality. This week, Oxfam released its annual report, Inequality Kills, showing that the pandemic is killing at least 1 person every 4 seconds, while the ten richest men have doubled their fortunes during this…
Beating back the Billionaire Variant
By Anthony Kamande In the informal settlement area of Kawangware in Nairobi, my friend Joe, a nurse, is quarantining in his small room after getting COVID-19 for the second time. He’s less concerned about the virus than his finances, which have deteriorated severely in the…
The Role of Aid in Reparations for the Harm of Colonialism
By Tariq Ahmad, Sara Duvisac and Keny Navarrete Viewing aid and development finance in light of the calls for reparations deserves serious (and long-overdue) consideration. Aid as a part of reparatory justice would not only change the reasons for ‘why’ traditional northern donors provide aid…
The Inequality Epidemic in Brazil
By Jefferson Nascimento When the covid-19 pandemic hit Brazil, it resulted in a social, economic and sanitary crisis as the country was vulnerable in different dimensions, a scenario that has been worsening since 2015 and interrupted the trend of income inequality reduction (since early 2000s)….
ICEBERGS AND COBWEBS – GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE AS A FORM OF ECONOMIC VIOLENCE
By Victoria Stetsko A woman’s hand trying to shield herself from a violent man’s fist is probably one of the first pictures that come to mind when hearing the term “gender-based violence”. However, gender-based violence (GBV) can’t be boiled down to the acts of physical…
Extreme inequality is economic violence
By Deepak Xavier and Victoria Harnett How did we get here? How did we end up in a reality where the vast majority of the most vulnerable have little hope of feeling safe from the virus when it’s more than a year since the first…
Lebanon is collapsing, and our ruling elites are watching from their superyachts
By Dana Abed and Sasha Al Hilani Lebanon, that small country on the Mediterranean, is rocked and rotten by core inequalities, that make life today on its premises insufferable – unless you are, of course, part of the oligarchy! For the past two years, Lebanon…